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STRAHGER 



BELOVED 



THE 



Witter 
Bynner 



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Book 


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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/belovedstrangertOObynn 



THE 
BELOVED 
STRANGER 




BOOKS BY WITTER BYNNER 

AN ODE TO HARVARD 

TIGER 

THE LITTLE KING 

THE NEW WORLD 

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS 

GRENSTONE POEMS 

A CANTICLE OF PRAISE 



BELOVED STRANGER 

Two Books of Song 
&f a Divertisement 
for the Unknown Lover 

By 

WITTER BTNNER 

\] 

With a Preface by 

William Marion Reedy 




New York 
ALFRED • A • KNOPF 

1919 



COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. 






V<\ 



PBINTBD IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA 

©Ci.A525987 



^ 










INSCRIPTION 

TO ROSE O'NEILL 



HAVE YOU ASCENDED STAIRS 

NOT TOUCHING THEM, 

EASILY TURNING AND HOLDING OUT YOUR PROUD 

HAND 
TO BEAR WITNESS? — 
WONDERING WHY YOU HAD NOT ALWAYS DONE 

THIS THING, 
SO SIMPLE AN ASCENT, 
FLOATING OVER PEOPLE, 
SMILING FOR THEM? 

AND HAVE YOU CEASED AND FLOWN NO LONGER, 

WAKED AGAIN, 

BOUND BY THE WOUND OF YOUR CHAIN? 

ASCEND WITH ME THEN, 

BE WITH ME IN THESE SONGS^ 

HOLD OUT YOUR PROUD HAND 
TO BEAR WITNESS. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Preface 

by William Marion Reedy 

BOOK I 
Inscription 

'* You come with the light . . .' 

Veils 3 
The Wave 4 
The Voice 5 
The Stranger 6 
Dream 7 
Roofs 8 
Wonder 9 
The Wall 10 
Magic ii 
Lightning 12 
Wings 13 

Cherry-Blossoms 14 
Hemispheres 15 
Horses 16 
The Wind 17 
The Blue-jay 18 
Tree-Toads 19 



The Valley 20 
Nakedness 21 
Darkness 22 
Fear 23 
A Sigh 24 
Singing 25 
Summons 26 
Mist 27 
Climbing 28 
Crystal 29 
Dusk 30 
The Boatmen 31 
The Cataract 32 
Autumn 33 
Weariness 34 
The Hour 35 
Lament 36 
The Skeleton 37 
The Crown 38 
The Moon 39 
An End 40 

DIVERTISEMENT 

" I change my ceremony . . .' 

■ I Change 43 
I Remember 44 
I Drift 45 
I Gamble 46 
I Leer 47 



Compute 48 
Stab 49 
Listen 50 
Leap 51 
Hope 52 
Evade 53 
Find 54 
Wonder 55 
Drink 56 
Kill 57 
Accuse 58 
Urge 59 
Answer 60 
Laugh 61 
Sigh 62 
Forget 63 
Exclaim 64 
Look 65 
Enter 66 
Swim 67 
Lean 68 
Vanish 69 



BOOK II 

" Like an arrow you come 
The Canyon 73 



Birds 74 
Ruins 75 
The Arrow 76 



The Dust 77 

Cactus 78 

A Ghost 79 

Touch 80 

No Ease 81 

Laurel 82 

Snows 83 

Certainty 84 

Gates 85 

The Jewel 86 

Pain 88 

Opium 89 

The Fire-Mountain 90 

Flame 91 

Fire 92 

The Dead 93 

Candles 94 

Peace 96 

The Bell 97 

The Cup 98 

The God 99 



PREFACE 

by 

WILLIAM MARION REEDY 



Preface 

Not in explanation of these " Songs to the Be- 
loved Stranger " is this brief introduction written, 
for poetry that does not explain itself may be 
something else, but it is not poetry. If there be 
those who do not get from these lyrics something 
of the poet's heart and something of their own 
hearts and thoughts it is because those persons 
fail in the one thing which the reader of verse 
must bring to the reading in order to get any- 
thing out of it — imagination. For poetry is 
written to the poet that is in man, and to none 
other. I doubt though that these poems — or 
this poem — will fail of appeal to anyone compe- 
tent to comprehend a presentation of beauty and 
of passion. 

These verses are not so much narrations of inci- 
dents, descriptions of scenes, analyses of moods 
or emotions, as frames or forms to be clothed 
upon with the subjective evocations they strike 
from the reader. They may be said to be images 
or pictures, but those images or pictures are more 
than they obviously contain. There is that in 

XI — 



them, by virtue of something like chemic action 
among the rhythms and phrases and words, which 
is in effect an aura of impressions hovering over 
them and taking form in subjective creations by 
the reader. The verses may be said, in literary 
phrase, to be symbols searching out and bringing 
to experience meanings the relations of which to 
the actual speech are no more explainable, though 
no whit less actual and real, than those experi- 
ences, moods, fancies, adventures upon which our 
minds are set off by certain collocations of notes 
or tones in music. They carry an over soul. I 
should say that the densest person imaginable 
reading this work would sense the fact that the 
singer is one who is translated out of space and 
time by the passionate experiences he undergoes 
and is as strange to himself as the unknown lover 
is to him in a world of he knows not how many 
more dimensions than here we know. There is 
an atmosphere here in which the realities are de- 
materialized, the persons disembodied. I think 
that this eerie impression is the better attained in 
hearing the poems well read than in reading them 
oneself. Here are colors, sounds, scents even, 
that seize upon you and waft you away to a re- 
gion wherein those colors, sounds, scents, reveal 
their over-meaning. Where the poems are most 
sensuous in their quality they are so as if the pas- 
sion somehow is decarnalized by its own intensity: 

— ^ii — 



It becomes an incandescent, varicolored wraith 
hovering over its expression in the mere words. 
So, when, in the course of the adventure here 
subtly and symbolically developed, there occur 
accesses of disgust over disillusion and deceit, the 
extravagances of simile and metaphor attain a gro- 
tesqueness that is shocking and mocking. These 
grotesques become so much in contrast, so much 
out of key that they are comic, and the comicality 
is the very essence of ironic bitterness. It is when 
one comes upon these things that one is made to 
realize by shock the completeness with which he 
has been transported out of himself into a realm 
of otherwhereness of which the here Is but a faint 
prefiguratlon. These " Songs to the Beloved 
Stranger " are all magic. They say more than 
is in the mere words. They have the character- 
istic of the hokku, the tanka, the ageku. The 
Chino-Japanese influence is Impressed upon them 
even where it is not clearly visible and audible in 
the scenes and incidents. They are not imitations, 
however, but absorptions of the Eastern spirit, 
that spirit compelling the manner. They say 
more than is in the words. They present outlines 
of pictures which call up in the reader thoughts 
and feelings wherewith to fill in those outlines with 
the story. The mere language Is not so much as 
are Its subtle connotations with the limitless scope 
of fancy, suggested by its phrases, its music. It 

— xiii — 



is as if the poet sings something in part, then 
ceases before completing the theme, and the reader 
takes the key and finishes the aposeiopesis. He 
does this not only in particulars but in generalities. 
The poet, as it were, states some fact or facts, 
however material or spiritual, and does it in such 
fashion that it moves the reader intellectually or 
emotionally — the latter possibly more than the 
former — to universalize it. The method is by 
intensification. There is an ascetic spareness of 
words. Little is directly told, but in a way to 
make the reader see, hear, feel, know much. The 
simplicity brings out spontaneous collaborative re- 
sponse in the reader — that reader in whom there 
is always a poet, else there would be no writers of 
poetry at all. These " Songs to the Beloved 
Stranger " tell a story of love, disappointment, 
disgust, loss, recovery of self and of the ideal that 
seemed to vanish, moving finally to an end in para- 
disal calm. The poet's experiences displayed and 
developed in the moods growing out of them, un- 
fold with clearness as the rapport of the reader is 
perfected by the hypnotic spell of tone and color. 
Their objectiveness becomes subjective in the 
reader, who then recreates the subjective to a 
new objectivity. It is in this that these poems 
most resemble music. 

This book of verse is not a tour de force, even 
though it be so different from those other works 

—xiv — 



upon which rests Mr. Witter Bynner's already dis- 
tinguished reputation. Those who appreciated 
''An Ode to Harvard," "The New World," 
" Grenstone Poems," or his plays, " Tiger," " The 
Little King," " Iphigenia in Tauris " — works of 
a wide range in subject and manner — will find 
here not much of the Bynner they know. In those 
works he is the poet, but not as now. He was 
more factual. In his lyrics he was a bit Browning- 
gerque. Somewhat didactic he was, too, and fas- 
tidious in his intellectuality. In his plays he was 
swift and sure, and his " Iphigenia in Tauris " 
pleased me, at least, for its easy, off-hand, unla- 
bored simulation of a Greek he made no preten- 
sion of translating. All through his poems Mr. 
Bynner has faint traces of that which we find in 
this book, but they are discoverable only in the 
backward glance, from the coign of present knowl- 
edge. 

No one thought of Witter Bynner when 
" Spectra " was published in 191 6 or when more 
" spectric " poems were published later. " Spec- 
tra " was put forth as the work of Emanuel 
Morgan and Anne Knish; the later volume 
owned a third collaborator. These " spectrics " 
were received with a loud guffaw, as, chiefly, 
they deserved. Clearly they were parodies, 
burlesques upon the works of the imagists, 
H. D., Richard Aldington, John Gould Fletcher 

—XV — 



and others. But they were something more, as I 
said at the time in a review of them, and as I 
maintained one day at luncheon at Mrs. Corinne 
Roosevelt Robinson's, when selections were read 
by no less a person than Mr. Witter Bynner him- 
self. I held, if I remember, that they were in 
many respects better imagism than that they made 
fun of, mauger Mr. Bynner's derision of me. 
These burlesquers, I contended, " builded better 
than they knew." Two years later the secret of 
*' Spectra " was out — Emanuel Morgan was 
Mr. Bynner, Anne Knish was Arthur Davison 
Ficke, and the third conspirator, Elijah Hay, was 
Marjorie Allen Seiffert. "A hoax!" shouted 
the critics. It was a hoax, but upon the scorners 
as well as the few who had found authentic poetry 
in the hoaxings. The hoaxers themselves were 
hoaxed, for some of their pseudonymous perform- 
ances were better stuff than they had ever done un- 
der or over their own names. Of the trio, at 
least one was thoroughly subdued to that he 
worked in " spectrically " — Mr. Bynner has 
never been able to lose Emanuel Morgan. Not 
though he deny him, as in this verse which was 
omitted from the serial publication of " Songs of 
the Beloved Stranger " in Reedy^s Mirror^ in 
1918: 



'XVt- 



Self-Portrait 

I saw myself sitting at the next table, 

But only in profile ; 

The mettle of color was there 

On the cheek-bone, 

And the little crape mustache, 

Though not black enough, 

And the lower lip 

Drooping like a rope in water. 

And the nose curving to ruin like the Chinese wall 

With Its little dark gates of old life . . . 

But when the full face turned, 

I knew again 

That there was no such person. 

That this is a picture of Witter Bynner those 
who know him in the flesh will not maintain, but 
it is a picture of some doppleganger; there is some 
such person, there on the page, whom Mr. Bynner 
cannot dislimn. As these poems appeared in The 
Mirror they bore the title of " Songs to the Un- 
known Lover." The title is now changed to 
*' Songs of the Beloved Stranger." Is Mr. Byn- 
ner the Beloved Stranger or the Unknown Lover? 
He may well be both ; surely, as the songs reveal, 
he has part in both, and both are " spectric," both 
speak with the voice of Emanuel Morgan and it 
is the voice of an authentic poet with a richer, 

— xvii — 



rarer, finer, more ethereal tone than anything we 
find in the earlier work of Witter Bynner. Here 
is something more than a pose. It is the voice of 
a singer with a clearer vision and a more moving 
rhythm than anything in Bynner before. Here 
the poet is more the master of the mystery of 
sound in the intensification or the subtler shading 
of sense. He is a better colorist too, and with a 
cleaner etching line, and with more delicate ar- 
rangement in values. Mr. Bynner wrote these 
poems as Emanuel Morgan, and would have 
published them under that name but for editorial 
purposes of mystification. They are more Mor- 
gan than Bynner. They are the songs of one who 
says " there was no such person " as himself, but 
the reader of them will know that the beautiful 
Chinese pictures here shown are not the offgivings 
of a non-existent intelligence. 

Mr. Bynner would seem to be possessed by a 
personality he conjured from his subliminal self 
— it is as if a medium were lost in his or her mys- 
terious " control." His case is strikingly similar 
to that of William Sharp who invented or dis- 
covered within himself that Fiona McLeod, whose 
forthpourings so inestimably surpassed in beauty 
and in emotional content anything that Sharp ever 
did as himself. Bynner is not so irretrievably 
swamped as a poet by Emanuel Morgan, as was 
Sharp by Fiona McLeod. There remains some 

— xviii — 



Bynner — a good deal in fact, unless it be that 
there always was much Emanuel Morgan in the 
earlier work of Bynner. We shall have to leave 
all this to the psychiatrists, but not, I hope, to the 
psychoanalysts, one of whom has discovered the 
" incest motive " in " Hiawatha ! " 

Mr. Bynner went to the Orient with Mr. Ficke 
in 19 1 6. In this book we have the singing evi- 
dence of what Emanuel Morgan saw there — evi- 
dence in color, in sound, in scent — the wind- 
blown bells on temples, odors of wistaria, the 
statues of jade. The poet " holds the gorgeous 
East in fee " but passes it on to us in miniatures, 
or in little carvings of exquisite delicacy. By in- 
numerable touches of artistry, seldom in broad 
strokes or splashes, the poet builds up his scene and 
elicits from it an emanation or glamour which is 
exactly the atmosphere in which a Beloved 
Stranger and an Unknown Lover — both, as I 
take it, denied by their summoner — may have 
their being. It is being of a kind, though warmer 
and more vivid, with that of those persons, like 
figures half awakened into life from dim tapes- 
tries erstwhile seen in since violated Belgium, who 
play their parts in the opalescent smoky dream 
dramas of Maeterlinck. 

Here, then, is a mystery of poetry not only but 
of personality, whether they are songs of or to 
a Beloved Stranger or an Unknown Lover. It 

— xix — 



is a work, perhaps esoteric, certainly exotic. But 
however you may explain it, it is a work which 
makes the reader sound curious deeps of his un- 
suspected self in response to the play upon him 
of the poet's curiously evocative art. 

William Marion Reedy. 



"XX- 



THE 
BELOVED STRANGER 



I! 



Book I 

You come with the light . . ." 



Veils 

This veil 

Of lavender and dawn 

Floats off 

Invisible, 

And this of purple noon 

Unwinds in wisdom, 

And this of evening 

Twitters, undulates. 

Dips, darts. 

And this of night 

Circles around me singing 

To the very edge and presence of the young 

moon — 
And it brushes the tip 
Like lips 
Three times. 



—8— 



The Wave 

You come with the light on your face 
Of the turn of a river from trees to the open sun, 
You are the wandering spirit of the most be- 
loved place — 
And yet you are a joy not there begun 
Nor anywhere, but always about to be, 
The invisible succeeding crest 
That follows from the open sea 
And shall be loveliest. 

I have no language, hardly any word 

To name you with, I have no flight of hands 

To swim your surface closer than a bird: 

For endless changing countermands 

Your face and blinds me blacker than a crest of 

sun, 
O joy not yet begun 
But only about to be, 
O sweet invisible unceasing wave 
Following me, following me 
Through the sea-like grave ! 



—4' 



The Voice 

When the dream of your voice draws near, 

my stranger, 

1 am birds, you the wind, 
I clouds, you the sun, 

I the bell, you the tongue. 

At the sound of your voice 

There is neither dawn nor night. 

Weeping nor the peace of death, 

But only your voice 

And I replying 

And you not answering, 

A part of my soul passing and I not finding it 

Though I open the door and stare out 

When the dream of your voice draws near, 

O my stranger ! 



—5- 



The Stranger 

Approaching ever on a winged horse 

Like yours 

And bringing me a living star, 

Like this they have all come to me 

And have all left me, 

All but the beloved stranger. 

And it is you this time 

Who are the beloved stranger, 

And I would have you lean near to me, 

Before you leave me, 

As the others have all left me, 

All but the beloved stranger 

Who will never leave me, 

Approaching ever 

On a winged horse. 

Like yours. 

Bringing me a living star — 

Like this. 



'6— 



Dream 

I had returned from dreaming — 

When there came the look of you 

And I could not tell after that, 

And the sound of you 

And I could not tell, 

And at last the touch of you 

And I could tell then less than ever, 

Though I silvered and fell 

As at the very mountain-brim 

Of dream. 

For how could the motion of a shadow in a field 

Be a person? 

Or the flash of an oriole-wing 

Be a smile? 

Or the turn of a leaf on a stream 

Be a hand? 

Or a bright breath of sun 

Be lips? 

I can reach out and out — - and nothing will be 

there . . . 
None of these things are true. 
All of them are dreams, 
There are neither streams 
Nor leaves nor orioles nor you. 



Roofs 

I don't know what it is 

That sets me flying 

Over the roofs this morning 

Swift on tiptoe, 

Touching the chimneys and railings. 

Not even the middle of roofs, 

Only the edges. 

I don't know why it is 

So many dancers 

Dance in my dawn, 

Hailing this hard city. 

For most of the dancers that lead me 

Point in directions daily 

Of mountain and of sea, 

Toward little villages 

And houses nestling, 

Rivers, 

Hills. 

I don't know what it is f 

That sets me flying | 

Over the roofs this early morning 

Swift on tiptoe ... i 

You I 

—8— 



Wonder 

Is It body? 

Is it spirit? 

Is it I? 

Is It you? 

Is it the beloved strangeness 

Of a god? 



—9— 



The Wall 

How Is It, 

That you, whom I can never know, 

My beloved. 

Are a wall between me and those I have known 

well — 
So that my familiars vanish 
Farther than the blue roofs of Nankow 
And are lost among the desert hills? 



•10' 



Magic 

And when I speak to you of common things 
You receive them for a moment 
With candor and with level eyes, 
Acknowledging their right to be. . . . 

And then always you dismiss them, 
Replacing them with the long, true splendors 
Of a steely fish cutting through rings of steel. 
And you run your fingers across a mountain-side 
Strung like a lyre with thin waters, 
And you sheath the blade of your body 
In a scabbard of sea. 

And the rock, 

On which my hand is. 

Becomes a firmament 

And my head the moon 

And my feet 

The people of the earth 

Who speak to us of common things. 



■//• 



Lightning 



There is a solitude In seeing you, 

Followed by your company when you are gone. 

You are like heaven's veins of lightning. 

I cannot see till afterward 

How beautiful you are. 

There Is a blindness In seeing you, 

Followed by the sight of you when you are gone. 



■12' 



Wings 



At the first footfall of an uncouth season 
You migrate with a sudden wing-sweep 
To beauty. 

With you there is no meantime, 

You are now, 

You are the island 

Where cherries always blossom, 

The nightingale's 

Twenty-four hours of song, 

You are the unbroken column by the sea. 



—13— 



Cherry-Blossoms 

A child, 

Looking at you, a cherry-bough. 

And at me, a river, 

Saw you and you, two cherry-boughs, 

And laughed. ... 

For run as fast as ever I may, 

My heart 

Moves only with you, 

Only with your blossoms. 

Remembering them 

Or awaiting them, 

Moving when you move in the wind 

And still when you are still. 



Hemispheres 

Only by remembering you, 

O east of my west, 

Can I make my lovers real to me, 

And only by forgetting you 

Can I find my truest solitude 

Strange and unknown to me. 



•^5— 



Horses 

Words are hoops 

Through which to leap upon meanings, 

Which are horses' backs, 

Bare, moving. 



—i6- 



The Wind 

How long must the wind go round in a mill 
And the meaning be drawn? 

How long before it shall climb a tree again 
And shake down shivering silver? 



The Blue-jay 

I who look up at you 

Am a blue-jay 

Crested, 

And my only way 

Of saying to you, 

My sky, 

That I have wings of your color 

Is — 

Clang ! 



r^lS- 



Tree-toads 

I went as far from myself as ever I could, 
To think of you. . . . 

I listened in the night 
To the little fluting toads 
Safe from their own images, 
And I heard them sighing 
With a silver sigh 
For beauty. 



—ig— 



The Valley 

Only I and the sunset 

In the snow-valley of your breast 

And the slow shadows of the motion of breath, 

Only I and moonrlse In the valley of your breast 

And the dark of sleep ... 

Until lilies In the valley have opened, 
And I am awake with petals 
And with the birds of your voice. 



— 20 — 



Nakedness 

Brightness of earth for the hollow of your throat 

They brought to you, 

And blossoms of death for you to throw away 

And many things like links of chains, 

To you whose wings are nakedness. 

But I have given your nakedness the gift of mine. 

And whosoever brings, from this day forth, 

Obeisances 

To the hollow of your bosom. 

Shall find between those hills of sun, 

Beloved, 

My shadow. ... 



'21' 



Darkness 

Leaping from that other darkness 

Come two circles of flame — 

When the pressure of your lips 

Made of my eyes 

Two suns 

Embracing the world with light . . . 

It was a darkness 

As rich with strong wonder 

As the depths of the sea, 

And you were upon me 

Like great sea-gardens 

And great waves . . . 

What shall I care, not seeing you now in the 
dark? — 

For you have fulfilled all darkness 

With light. 

To which I need not even open my eyes. 



— 22 — 



Fear 

This day has come, 

Like an idiot, blank and dumb. 

Over a lonely road 

Under lonely skies. 

And though at first I whistled and strode 

Like a strong man showing no fear. 

Yet I am afraid, afraid of this day. 

You not being here, 

And I look back and back at this uncouth day. 

You not being here, 

And my heart is in my mouth because of its eyes, 

In which nothing is clear. 



—23- 



A Sigh 



Still must I tamely 

Talk sense with these others? 

How long 

Before I shall be with you again, 

Magnificently saying nothing! 



-24— 



Singing 



What Is this singing I hear 
Of the sun behind clouds ? 

It Is not long before you shall come to me, 
Beloved. 

And that Is the singing I lean to hear 
In my side, 
Where your bird Is. 



'25— 



Summons 

Sail into my sight, 

Till the sunlight gathers only upon you 
And the blues of the water 
Encircle you. 

Though you have sailed no farther from me 
Than a quiet bay 
Beyond a point of cedars, 
Yet you have been as far away 
As death. 



^26— 



Mist 

Between a high shadow of hay and of hills 

And the deep glen mothering the sound of its 
waters, 

I climb up into the dark — 

Then slowly back again, 

Because it is so far to you. 

And I lean against the misty fence of the morn- 
ing .. . 

Till suddenly 

The mist goes smouldering down the world 

Before the stream 

Of dawn. 

Like mice 

Before wings. 



-27— 



Climbing 

The mist on the mountain is gone now. . . . 

I have climbed many roads to see the mountain. 

I have ventured many people to see you, 
Peak of golden sun, 
Beloved face. 



•28- 



Crystal 

Between your laughter and mine 

Lies the shadow of the sword of change. 

Yours is innocent. 
Mine knows 

You had sat abstracted 

By the touch of dreaming strings 

Of an old guitar — 

When in the centre of the room 

A crystal dish cracked for no reason. 

Then you darted with joy to the fragments, 
Like a fish to a crumb, 

And held between your thumbs and your fingers 
Two pieces of laughter. 



— 2g — 



Dusk 

Dusk came over the hill to me, 

Holding' a red moon, 

And I danced with her. 

Feeling and following her starry steps, 

Till she turned and gave the moon 

To the swarthy night — 

And slipped away without explaining. 



—30— 



The Boatmen 

A nearing benlson of boatmen singing . . . 
Can they be bringing to me a new wonder? 

They are waiting in the night, as for a passen- 
ger .. . 
But who would embark now with no light at all? 

The dark is shaking like a tambourine . . . 
They are taking my old wonder. 



■Sr- 



The Cataract 

Over the edge of the days 

My wonder has fallen 

To be scattered and lost away, 

Down from the temples of my love of you . . . 

From the temples of blue jade 

The downward flight of all the Chinese angels 

Diving together, 

With their white phoenixes attendant, 

Plumes, arms, voices intertwirling, 

All heaven falling, 

Green with the touch of earth 

Grievous with laughter. 

Embracing, thrown apart, 

And then, below, 

Inwound for the upward flight again, 

The crested flight. 

To the temples of white jade . . . 

To the changing temples of my love of you. 



—32- 



Autumn 

Last year, and other years, 

When autumn was a vision of old friendships, 

Of friends gone many ways, 

I stood alone upon a bank of coppered fern, 

I breathed my height of isolation, 

Encircled by a remembering countryside. 

I touched dead fingers in a larch . . . 

I sailed on long blue waves of land 

Flowing transfixed the whole horizon round . . . 

I wore the old imperial robes 

Of aster, sumac, golden-rod . . . 

I flaunted my banners of maple . . . 

And, when the sun went down, 

I lay full length 

Upon a scarlet death-bed. 

So kingly a thing was autumn. 

Other years. 

But here you stand beside me on this hill. 

And shake your head and smile your smile 

And twist these things lightly between your fingers 

As a pinch of dust — 

And bare your throat 

And show me only spring. 

Spring, spring. 

Fluttering like your slender side, 

Cascading like your hair. 

—33— 



Weariness 

There is a dear weariness of love . 
Hand relaxed in hand, 
Shoulder at rest upon shoulder. 

And to me that pool of weariness is more won- 
derful 
Than crater, cataract. 
Maelstrom, earthquake ... 

For it is a double pool 

In which lie, silent. 

The golden fishes of sleep. 



'34— 



The Hour 



I was glad of the night that hid my face 

For your hand touching me 
Was the stroke of an hour 
In sickness, 
Was the fire of ice. 



~B5' 



Lament 

There is a chill deeper than that of death, 

In the return of the beloved and not of love. 

And there is no warmth for it 

But the warmth of a world which needs more than 

the sun — 
Or the warmth of lament for beauty, 
Which is graven on many stones. 

And yet I would be with you a little while, 
Dear ghost. 

I will endure even the marsh-mist on my throat 
And the fingers of the moon. 



-36- 



The Skeleton 

I keep my closet neat now, 
The skeleton well covered. 

But when you even walk by the locked door, 

The breezes of your look 

Stir what hangs inside — - 

And I wonder what you are hearing 

When those knee-bones knock together. 



-37— 



The Crow 

And it is you 

For whom the sun and all the stars 

Made but a starveling's crown, 

So azure was your presence 

And so beamed with light. 

You were the earth in which I would have laid 

me down, 
The sea in which I would have drowned. 
But the earth is dead now 
And the sea cold. 
And the sun and all the stars now 
Are changed — 

Leaving your head dishonored and uncrowned . . . 
The sun is an ache on my own temples now 
And the moon an icy cap, my cap. 
The cap of a fool. 
And I shake the stars for bells. 



-S8- 



The Moon 

Red leaped 

The moon, 

From behind the black hill of night . . 

And soon it was silver forever 

And there was no change . . . 

Until its time came . . . 

And its setting was as white as a corpse, 
Among the flowers of dawn. 



—39' 



An End 

As though it mattered, 

As though anything mattered — 

Even laughter! 

For In the end there shall be no one to tell 
Whether It was laughter 
Or weeping. 



—40— 



Dwertisement 

I change my ceremony . . / 



/ 



/ wonder how it happens 

I was made 
A foe of agate 

And a friend of jade. 

Yet have become, 

Unwisely Fm afraid. 
The friend of agate 

And the foe of jade — 

So that I wish, by dying. 

To be made 
Careless of agate. 

Careless of jade. 



—43- 



/ Remember 



There was an hour 

When we could love and laugh . . . 

And after that hour we went like revellers in madness 

And the touch of the pavement was a kiss 

And the street-corners were embraces^ 

And the height of cities was our height over people 

And the height of stars our height over cities 

And the height of heaven our height over stars. 

And the height of God's throne would have been our 

height over heaven. 
But for our mirth. 

Which shook vertically through heaven 
And unashamed. 



—44— 



/ Drift 



Shod in little winds. 

Or leaves, or snow, 

My feet shall drift across the moonlight . . . 

How plumed they were with direction 

In those other days 

How winged with mirth! — 

But now they shall drift 
And be still. 



'45' 



/ Gamble 

I threw the dice with Death, 

I won. 

Again I won. 

Death only smiled . . . 

But so did the deep-bosomed toadj 

And the birch 

Winked its pencilled eyes. 



■46- 



// / might be tall negroes in procession. 

Carrying each of them a rib of you. 

And a cannibal-king bearing your collar-bones. 

One in my right hand, one in my left, 

And touching my forehead with them at slow intervals, 

^Might I not be too comforted 

To weepf 

If my love had only consumed you. 

Not left you unconsumed. 

Might not the moon have silvered me with content. 

Oiled me like the long edges of palmsf 



—47- 



/ Compute 



1 am a miser of my memories of you 

And will not spend them. 

When they were anticipations 

I spent them 

And bought you with them. 

But now I have exchanged you for memories. 

And I will only pour them from one hand into the other 

And back again. 

Listening to their 

Clink, 

Till someone comes 

Worth using them 

To buy . . . 

Then I will change them again into anticipations. 



--4S- 



/ Stab 



Love embalms the moments. 
Art stabs the years. 
Love is the careful undertaker. 
Art is the beloved assassin. . . 
Let me wear a black glove then 
With a knife in it! 



—^9— 



/ Listen 

I hear a robin chuckling - — 
/ change my ceremony. 

From my hearse of winter, 

From my coffin of you, 

I start up and wave my hand. 

For who has returned. 
Curtseying in the shape of a tree. 
But spring! 



—so— 



/ Leap 



I loved you 
And you are gone. 

And since there is so much landscape. 
Why then should I care. 
Having loved you. 
That you are gone? 

Shall L 

Who have been like a mountain-top. 
Crawl prostrate to the sea? — 
Or leap like a cliff? 



I — 



I Hope 



I must throw out my net for the silver sides 

Of fish like the brows of Chinese brides 

Or the round and red-eyed fish of woe 

Slipped from the waves of the after-glow 

Or for one small airy, watery flier 

With a fin of cloud and a wing of fire! — 

/ must throw out my net — though I only bring in 

Weeds and weazened terrapin . . , 



■52- 



/ Evade 

The look in your eyes 

Was as soft as the underside of soap in a soap-dish . . . 

And I left before you could love me. 



—53- 



/ Find 

The darkness of your face. 

That darkness as of olive-trees. 

That darkness of warm earth. 

Once gave the whiteness of the Parthenon 

Its living beauty . . , 

Your face a wine-cup 

For the blood of grapes. 

Your smiles bright-weaving shadows of the vine. 

Make me a wreath of them. 

Give me a cup in the sunlight 

Of the blood of grapes! 



-54' 



/ Wonder 

In my desert of familiars 

Time rocked like a camel under me. 

Ungainly, heaving minuteSj 

Shaggy hours. 

Four feet gathering into a season. 

Trailing into years . . . 

O sullen-swaying ship, 

Is this difference the shadow of palm-trees f 
Or only the shifting of my familiars. 
The sandsf 



/ Drink 

Wine is a worship . . . 

Blue peas 

Are set in rows 

In pods of lapis lazuli 

When gods eat. 

And though oysters 

Are white as dawn and singing 

From the sea — 

The hearts of humming-f?irds 

Are black as a storm 

In summer. 



—56~ 



/ Kill 

I stood between you and the hills . . . 

Sorrowful hunter that I was. 

The wings of your mouth ceased flying 

Because I killed them with a kiss. 

And the rest of your wings flew away 
Into the sunset. 



■57- 



Accuse 



You have words 

But nothing hangs on them. 

They gleam 

On the moulding of your mouth 

Like empty picture-hooks. 

Even when you say you love me, 
There^s but a frame — 
With neither me in it 
Nor yourself. 



■58- 



/ Urge 



Out of the woods you peer. 

And your eyes 

Are like the desolate moon 

Thawing, 

And there are leaves in your hand, 
Not withered. 

And there are words in your heart. 
Never used . . . 

Bring me your words, your leaves, your eyes. 

Beloved stranger. 

We have outlived the moon . . . 



^59' 



/ Answer 

When you are asking^ by these lips that touch. 
Whether death is nothing or is much, 

I am but answering your waves of hair, 
"Beloved, O beloved, who shall care! " 



— 60' 



/ Laugh 



Nozv when embers whisper 

And mice cry in the wall 

And a chair in the dark crosses its legs — 

/ am thinking of one 

Of whom I shall not be thinking some later night 

When embers exclaim 

And mice laugh in the wall 

And the chair in the dark uncrosses its legs. 



—6i— 



/ Sigh 



You passed as quick and unknown 
As the shadow of wings 
On sun-closed lids 
By the sea. 



^62— 



/ Forget 



The manifold 

Red metal of your hair, vibrant like a bell. 

Made, when you moved, a delicate old din 

As of Spanish gold 

Brought shining with a deep-sea spell 

From where dead men have been. 

And to see one glint of the crystalline 

Blue magic of your eyes 

Was to be lighter than with the first 

Breath of bluebells after the worst 

Of winters — was to lean 

Upon the skies. 

But when your spring shall have ending 

And your gold be done spending. 

The metal in the earth of you shall go its way 

And in some other heart than mine a bluebell sway. 



—63— 



/ Exclaim 



How can you like it^ women! — 

To be the solemn quips of bright despair. 

Angels in a graveyard. 

Monuments of mist on a grass-blade 

Tears of the laughing moment. 

Smiles of unsmiling time! 



— 64- 



I Look 



I have left you behind. 

You lovers talking poetry. 

You poets talking love. 

And as I look back at the yellow windows 

Of your dark little house. 

Smoke, going up from your chimney. 

Smiles into the night. 

Circles into a halo. 

Between the noise of two cats 

And the quiet of the north star. 



■65- 



Enter 



Into the night comes the blind man again. 
Seeing a god with his feet. 
And smiling with his cane 
At what we think we see. 

He climbs an infinite pagoda. 

Each hour a new roof 

Tinkling to his touch. 

He breathes incense, 

And a star is set in each palm 

And in his heart a vase 

For dew. 



M— 



/ Swim 

Beyond the fluctuating pulse of flesh, 

Its agile and interminable change, 

I am enamored of the rocks and sun. 

Their bodily firm warmth, their passionate calm . . • 

// woman I must have, give me the sea. 

Colder and stronger, closer, more suave 

Than women, her wave winding on my breast 

For the embrace, the shock, the ecstasy. 

Her white-veined arm of foam upraised in air 

To throw me back upon the beach of sleep. 



.67. 



/ L,ean 



Close to the moving sands, 
I lean upon the desirable dead. 
Twining their fingers with mine. 
The dead 
Who are eased 
Of their love. 

But the waves come in — 
Alive. 



•68— 



/ Vanish 

Inrushing 

Life, 

Life, 

Life, 

Outrushing again. 

And all in touch — 

Even this little moment 

Thrown bubbling. 

Iridescent, 

Gone, 



L 



Book II 

" Like an arrow you come . . .*' 



The Canyon 

It is the dead sex of the earth 
On which the sun still gazes. 

It is all the mountains of love, 
Into whose sarcophagus 
Peers 
The moon. 



'73- 



Birds 

I should not find the pain so hard to bear, 
Of lying bound upon the world, 
If only daily there were birds, like yours, Prome- 
theus, 
To tear from me 
This unquenched heart. 



—74— 



Ruins 

O, to be back in heaven, 

Beyond hope, 

Beyond the mountain-circled and forgotten dead, 

Beyond the curling waves of buried stone ! 

Can I who have seen heaven decaying 
Become enzealed for the earth, 
Whose ruins cannot be 
So vast and beautiful 
As the ruins of heaven ! 



—75— 



The Arrow 

Now like an arrow you come, sped by an angel, 

Tipped with the spirit of wings and pointed with 
pain — 

Only from heaven could fall the dart of your pres- 
ence 

Blinding as the lightning, blown as summer rain. 

Herald of heaven you are and the dancing height 
jf wonder. 

Visible soul of singing, moving breath of 
breath . . . 

The dancers of the earth aspire to be winged al- 
ways. 

But you are the dancer of heaven, yearning for 
death. 

How I ache to ease you, reaching with my fingers, 
Straining with my heart, through the empty air! 
I would take your beauty into my hands and 

break it 
And stand before you breathless and be the perfect 

slayer. 

Must you still in heaven dance with all the angels 
And weary of them, leave them and wander down 

the sky. 
Living, living, living, living, living, living, 
Yearning and dancing, and no way to die? 

-76- 



The Dust 

Where you go I follow you, 

Rather I run before, 
And here I am when you return, 

Waiting by your door . . . 
I am the dust upon your face. 

The wind that worries you, 
I am your beggar and your hound, 

Your leaf of grass, your shoe. 



—77— 



Cactus 

They flush with their love and fill their breasts 

with it 
And say short words, not knowing what they say, 
Their meetings have contents and covers. 
Jewels and lids. . . . 

They can count their love. 

How different, O beloved stranger, 

Have our meetings been, 

When I may not say my love ! — 

Meetings of mountain and desert. 

Open to the wind. 

With snow far-off, like a cry. 

And on edges of cactus 

Red drops 

Of the blood of silence. 



-78- 



A Ghost 

You leaned against me, 

Humming a slow song 

Of purple shadows . . . 

Showers and javelins and shooting-stars 

Fell through me where you leaned . . . 

Whose ghost was I? 



—79— 



Touch 

Someone was there . . . 

I put out my hand in the dark 
And felt 
The long hair 
Of the wind. 



—80— 



No Ease 

I will not think of you too much, 

Lest I become as a king of olden hell, 

Surrounded by a ring of flame. 

And it is a trouble to you, 
And no ease to me. 

For if I thought of you too much, 

I should fall through space 

And there would be no world for me at all. 

And I can still go about the world 
As patient as a beggar with one arm. 
As valiant as a crab with one quick claw 
If I do not think of you too much. 



—8i- 



Laurel 

I will not call you beautiful again, 
Though my throat ache with the silence of refrain- 
ing. 
And not a sigh will I explain. 
Though my hands fill with explaining . . . 

For you are as beautiful as a hill I know 
In spring, breathing with light — 
But as soon as I told you, a chill like snow 
Covered and turned you white. 

I will not call you beautiful again. 

Your labyrinthine loveliness I will not name. 

I will be silent as forgotten men 

Dead beyond blame. 

Xo matter how your airs of spring beguile. 
Be it my fortitude, my business, my endeavor, 
Not to acclaim the laurel of your smile — 
Except to-day, to-morrow and forever! 



—82— 



Snows 

Which is it now, 

You who lived once by the chill height? 

Is this whiteness of yours 

Snow of the winter 

Hard-shining in the sun, 

Or snows returning t^^o months after snow, 

Snows oi narcissus, 

Drifting over you — 

O coldest, sweetest body? 



—83— 



Certainty 

Does it mean nothing to you that I love you? . . . 
It would mean as little were I Michael Angelo. 
You would put out your dancing fingers, 
Those quick hands, 
And say, '^ Noy do not love me.*' 

But that is what I love, 
Your certainty — 
Of which on all the earth 
There is very little. 



■84- 



Gates 

I had answered them, 
" But I am left with no desire, 
For I have known a happiness 
Whose memory is all my need/* 

The camel lounges through another gate. 

You answer now, 
'' But I am left with no desire, 
For I have known a happiness 
Whose memory is all my need!* 



-Ss- 



The Jewel 

I have been in a far land 
And seen a lofty gate 

And a camel-train sway toward the sand 
With chrysoprase for freight — 

And seen a lady with a ring 
That led me like an eye, 

And whichever way her hand would swing, 
That way swung I. 

1 followed like a poppy-fool, 

Calling where she went, 
'' O take my soul and make it cool, 

Unwind my cerement! " — 
And still the coal-black jewel swung 

Before me, left and right. 
Like a chant the sea had sung 

On a windy night. 
Like dust behind her camel's hoof, 

I followed in the road 
To the golden-rippling roof 

Of her august abode. 
She turned to see whom her ring had led 

And turned away again 
Into a palace carven red 

With dead desires of men. 
—86— 



The passion in my feet was spent. 

I stood before a wall 
As wide as the firmament, 

As final and as tall. 



«— ^7""" 



Pain 

Yes, life has curious ways, and I to you 
Am little more than anyone might be. 
But I cannot lose you any more, my love. 

I cannot see you any more, my love, 
For if I do not see you I have eyes 
But if I see you I have none at all. 

I cannot love you any more, my love, 
For if I do not love you I have peace 
But if I love you I have none at all. 

It was a cruel thing when you were born, 
For I had always pain of missing you 
But finding you at last, that was the pain. 



—88— 



opium 



Like an opium-lover, 

I banish you, 

All thought of you. 

But wherever I send you, 

Your two arms entwine me, 

Drawing me there with you 

Into exile. 



The Fire-Mountain 

Forget you ? — 

Can that Hawaiian volcano 

Forget its quick fountains and cascades 

Of fire? 



—go— 



Flame 

Is it your fault 

That winds from heaven sweep through me and 
I call it you ? 

Is it your fault 

That the chin and throat of you are the curve 

Of a mountain-brook where I would drink, 

That your whole body is a heap of stinging sweet- 
ness from the pines, 

That when you sleep your silence is an arch of the 
moon, your motion thunder of the moon. 

And when you wake your eyes are the long path 
of ocean to a new burning. 

To a nest of phoenixes 

Whose golden wings 

Are tipped with flame? 

Is it your fault 

That phoenixes arise from fire — 

And dragons? 



— p/— 



Fire 

In the interval you answered me 

Like a fire : 

** But these hands '' 

(They were stretched toward me) 

'^ Are for the hands of another^ 

These lips " 

(They were curved and strange) 

'' Are for the lips of another, 

And there is someone for whom these eyes 

Can gleam 

As they never can for you!^ 

So answering me, 

You let your bright thigh touch me 

And my throat rest across yours 

And your breast heave with mine, 

While your face crouched afar from me 

like an escaping slave 
And your hands fell fainting . . . 
And into me, even now as I hold you, 
Roll all the waste spaces of the world, 
Desert after desert. 



— p2. 



The Dead 

Since you bequeath your living face 

And leave your throat for me to lean my eyes 

against, 
As though the one I loved the uttermost had died 
And willed me all her golden benefits, 
Am I not happy then? . . . 

O largesse of the dead ! 
O vaulted throat ! 



—93— 



Candles 

Your eyes are not eyes — 
They never laugh. 

Your arms and ankles laugh, 
Your lips twinkle incessantly, 
Your cheek is bland with mirth, 
Your winged ear flashes backward — 
But your eyes never laugh. 

You do your best to arrange differently: 
You heap your eyes round with playthings, 
You tell them rippling ribaldries, 
You dress them harlequin and clown 
And send them skipping — 
But they never laugh. 

Many people, impelled by the bright altar of 

your face. 
Come into the temple. 
Now knowing that they cannot see your eyes 

at all. 
Nor you theirs. 
And they worship familiarly; 
While I, looking close, am afraid, 
—9i— 



For I see only a niche and candles 
A circle of hard flames 
Around an unknown god. 



—95' 



Peace 

-When I am crucified upon his brow, 
Will the strange god be at peace ? 



— g6 — 



The Bell 

Beloved stranger, 

You who were a god 

With a temple, 

Where are you now 

Among these dragon-tUes, 

Among these broken walls? 

Are you too become dust? 

Or do you hear the solitary bell 

Beside the single arch still standing 

Of the gateway which once led to you? 

Do you hear the wind 

Which moves me to these whispers, 

You who were a god? 

Do you hear the sand 

Drifting In your temple? 

Do you hear me, me, me — 

The solitary bell 

Beside the single arch still standing 

Of the gateway which once led to you ? 



— P7— 



The Cup 

Shall the wound of the world be my wound, 
That I cannot shake off the cold hands of clay? 

I have seen a golden-white face, young and close 

to mine, 
Dear and unknown, waken and vanish away, 
I have seen the most deeply-known of all faces 

deepen and vanish away, 
I have distilled from the sun 
And from the cool of evenings and of dawns 
And from the beauty of all my strangers, one by 

one. 
My potion. I have drunk my fill . . . 

let me lift the cup to you, strange god, to say 
That I have no more will 

To shake off now the moon-cold hands of clay. 

1 drain the cup to you, white stranger, who arrive 
Silent — silent with the wound of the world, my 

wound. 



^8- 



The God 

Burn my body, 
Disperse me in many beds, 
That at last none may follow 
Into my wide solitude 
But the strange god . . . 
The beloved. 



— ^P— 



